How to stop students skipping lesson videos in LifterLMS (and prove they watched)
In LifterLMS, a student completes a lesson by clicking Mark Complete. That works when lessons are mostly reading, but for video lessons it means a student can open the lesson, click the button and move on. If you need completion to mean something (for certificates, compliance or just knowing who’s keeping up), the video has to be part of the decision.
Why “video ended” isn’t enough
Most approaches listen for the player’s ended event. A student can drag the playhead to the last second and the video “ends”. What you actually want is unique seconds watched: how much of the video the student really played, however many sittings it took.
Set it up with Pellio
- Install the Pellio plugin and connect your site (Pellio → Settings). Download it here.
- Add the video to the lesson. In the lesson editor, choose a video in the Pellio video box, or paste a Pellio link into LifterLMS’s Video Embed URL.
- Turn on “Require watching before Mark Complete” and set Watched at least (90% by default). The Mark Complete button stays hidden until the student has watched that much.
- Optional: “Complete the lesson automatically when watched”, so students don’t have to click anything.
- Optional: “Prevent skipping ahead until watched”. Students can always go back, but can’t jump past the furthest point they’ve watched.
Pellio checks the watch time itself when the lesson is completed, so the result can’t be faked from the browser.
See who watched what
Each lesson gets a Pellio: student video progress panel listing every student, how much they watched and when. Pellio also adds two LifterLMS engagement triggers (a student watches a lesson’s video; a student has watched every video in a course), so you can award achievements or send emails.
When you need proof
For compliance training, Pellio’s Advanced plan adds:
- Attestations: the student confirms they watched, by ticking a box, typing their name, or their name and password.
- A tamper-evident learner log of every view, verification and completion, exportable as CSV per course.
- xAPI statements to your LRS and SCORM packages for other LMSs.
- Latest-version completion: replace a lesson video and students who finished the old one are asked to watch the new one.
More detail in the help center: LifterLMS and Require the latest version for completion.